Are They Making Kodachrome Film Again
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The magnitude of Kodak successfully rereleasing a picture like Ektachrome is huge. Information technology's also a milestone that, bluntly, many of us never thought possible. When the staff here at CP first heard whispers of an Ektachrome revival, we were happy, simply skeptical. Nosotros'd been through this earlier with other film projects. Big promises on social media to #keepfilmalive, the flashy promotional campaign, the buzzworded crowdfunding, and the whole load of aught that happens afterwards. For more than a year nosotros heard simply a few intermittent reports that Ektachrome was still coming. Simply we were entirely gear up to be disappointed over again.
When I walked out the doors of my local photographic camera shop property an actual roll of new Kodak Professional Ektachrome E100, I was astonished. Those crazy folk from Rochester actually did it , I thought. They revived slide film .
The rerelease of Ektachrome was an important moment in the revival of film as a popular photographic and artistic medium, so we decided to requite it some fourth dimension before writing our impressions of the new emulsion. For the past six months, the entire CP staff has been shooting this film to become a complete film of what information technology is, and how it fits in the age of film revivalism. Here'southward what we've constitute.
What is the new Ektachrome
Ektachrome E100 is an Due east-6 process slide film, the nigh endangered of all film species. Once the creme-de-la-creme of all color film, Due east-6 slide moving-picture show was hit the hardest by the digital revolution. Mounted slides of family vacations churning through the mechanical teeth of a projector were replaced past online photo sharing services. Professional mode and editorial photographers abandoned the laborious process of shooting and developing slide movie for the infinitely quicker and easier to utilize digital files. The neighborhood labs that developed anybody'south film naturally abandoned the East-6 process as fast equally need would allow.
Today, slide movie is kept alive past the most hardcore of hardcore film shooters who love it for its high-risk, high-advantage nature. They'll gladly trade hard piece of work, mental toil, and untold amounts of dispensable income for the rich, vivid, and true-to-life images simply slide flick can bring. I'd even say those same shooters enjoy the laborious process of shooting slide motion picture because information technology is the very antithesis of the fast-paced, ephemeral nature of modern photography. If y'all like picture photography, you lot'll probably like slide film.
But like all the hardcore segments of any market place, these slide film shooters are far outnumbered by casual, everyday shooters. Information technology would seemingly make more sense for Kodak to innovate an easy-to-use, affordable color negative film, not a technically demanding, outdated, niche movie. And even so, here we are.
The new Ektachrome is a daylight-counterbalanced color transparency film, like the sometime Ektachrome. It's a lower contrast formula to provide balance and a broad dynamic range, and it has a neutral tonal scale for greater color accurateness. Super fine T-grain keeps images smooth and suitable for scanning.
Shooting the new Ektachrome
Ektachrome E100 is no different from old school slide films in that it'south a difficult, inflexible moving picture meant for the more experienced shooter (or at least one who has a reliable camera with an accurate metering system, and a general understanding of calorie-free). At ISO 100 it's a slow film. Shooters used to pushing C41 or recovering highlights and shadows on badly exposed shots in post processing, as well every bit lovers of high-contrast lighting conditions, will be in for a rude enkindling. Ektachrome doesn't hesitate to blow highlights and shell shadows if exposure is a half end off. Nor will information technology hesitate to throw your colors out of whack if incorrectly exposed past even small amounts.
A difficult film like Ektachrome needs a more experienced bear upon to be shot to its advantages. Ektachrome demands an intimate knowledge of how to meter for specific situations, or at least an incredibly accurate metering and autoexposure system, lest yous terminate up with a horribly exposed shot. I would hesitate to trust this film inside a pure auto-exposure camera, and I would also be very careful while running this through an old meterless mechanical photographic camera unless you have a skilful handheld light meter or a perfectly-trained eye for low-cal.
All those worrying words spoken, best practices for shooting Kodak's new Ektachrome are actually surprisingly simple. For people with experience, Ektachrome is easy. Shoot it at box speed and meter for mid-tones. Over-exposing past one terminate will create colour shifts, and over-exposing by more than volition destroy highlights. Under-exposing will kill contrast and color. But shoot it at 100, and make sure you've got the right camera, lens, and light for a 100 speed movie.
Prototype Quality and Character
What are the advantages of this troublesome film? Ektachrome'southward technical data canvass notes a remarkable sharpness and a neutral, but rich colour palette, which should result in a truer-to-life image compared with nearly C41 moving-picture show. While this is objectively true, information technology only scratches the surface of what this film really is. Let's dig a little deeper.
To go closer, permit'southward offset take a tip from St. Thomas Aquinas and define this picture in terms of what it is non. Despite its marketing as a professional picture show, Ektachrome is not the virtually capable, about accurate slide moving-picture show on offer. That championship all the same belongs to Fuji Provia 100F. Provia is a more versatile motion picture because of its wider exposure latitude, and for my money, it'due south a more accurate film when it comes to colour rest. If pressed for a job that required an accurate color slide film, I'd cull Provia over Ektachrome.
We could finish it at that place, but measuring Ektachrome past the yardstick of sheer technical accomplishment is a error. In fact, I'd argue that technical achievement was never the bespeak of Ektachrome to brainstorm with. Ektachrome's value doesn't prevarication in the sheer majesty of its technical power, only in the fashion information technology leverages that technical ability. For instance, Ektachrome is incredibly sharp, but it still features a bit more grain than would be expected for a modern film. Ektachrome uses this to its advantage – images recall the older slide films that populated the pages of onetime National Geographic bug from the 1980s and 90s. These shots are super fine, only we can still tell they're made on 35mm pic.
An even bigger part of Ektachrome's signature look is its color rendition. Equally stated earlier, its color balance is much more neutral than its color negative counterparts, but still falls a petty short of the accented neutrality of a motion-picture show similar Fuji Provia. It features a slight accent towards bluish, which again is a signature of old schoolhouse Eastward-six slide film. Ektachrome too features a signature colour saturation and contrast that I've never seen with other films. The colors are deep, rich, and vivid, but never drawing-esque every bit some C41 color films can exist. Skin tones of any flavor are perfect, truthful-to-life. Looking at Ektachrome'southward colors is like looking at a well-preserved painting by Titian himself, which makes most colour offerings wait like dime-store Fauvism by comparison.
All this being said, it's a film that requires the right context and setting to succeed. I'd hesitate to recommend this film to run-and-gun street shooters, showtime for its lack of exposure latitude, and then because of its loftier saturation, which can unnaturally emphasize more than incidental parts of a scene. This is a film that excels under controlled lighting, or with a slower, more careful style of shooting. It rewards patience and anticipation, precise subject placement, and an intimate understanding of color. Ektachrome also excels particularly well in diffused lighting, which tames its loftier contrast and saturation and lets details pop simply a little fleck more.
Final Thoughts
Ektachrome'due south specificity makes it hard to identify among other color films. Information technology'due south not a do-it-all motion-picture show similar Kodak Portra 400 or Fuji Pro 400H. It'southward not even the cream of the crop professional tool like Fuji Provia 100F. If I had to place it anywhere, I'd place it close to Kodak Ektar in that it's a chip of a character piece, even though it features a better overall color rendition than that film. But if I really think about it, Ektachrome stands alone.
I suppose that'due south fitting – past all rights, Ektachrome shouldn't even be here. Up until a few months ago it was all but certain that we'd be saying good day to East-vi slide moving-picture show. Kodachrome cruel in 2010. Fujifilm, though producing some of the all-time film in the game, keeps cut film from their catalog like a bitter ex deleting every photograph of yous off of their phone. And fifty-fifty though moving-picture show is experiencing a resurgence, information technology never looked like the difficult, strange pleasures of slide moving-picture show would e'er exist attractive to new shooters, not to mention film manufacturers.
And yet, here we are with a newly manufactured but completely old-schoolhouse picture in Ektachrome. Even if information technology acts much similar its erstwhile, outdated predecessors, people love this moving-picture show, if not for what it is, so for what information technology represents. The reintroduction of Ektachrome represents a big vote of confidence from the earth's biggest moving picture manufacturers, and bodes well for motion-picture show photography as a whole. It ensures us that slide film, still an integral office of film photography, is preserved for the foreseeable future. Most chiefly, it's a sign that a large company like Kodak thinks that our weird petty obsession with film is really worth something. As somebody who loves moving-picture show, that ways everything.
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